Ian Avilez can’t get sufficient of books. A lot in order that the first-grader is studying at a third-grade stage. “I used to learn to him when he was a child,” stated his mom, Miguelina Minier. His kindergarten trainer requested about Ian’s expansive vocabulary. “Why does Ian know phrases that I didn’t even train him?’ I’m like, ‘We reside on prime of the library,’” Ms. Minier stated.
It’s true. Ms. Minier and her son reside within the Sundown Park Library and Flats in Brooklyn, which opened in 2023 with the residential half constructed above the library. The primary library on this spot opened in 1905, and it lasted till 1970, when it was torn down. A brand new one opened in 1972, though, in time, it wanted numerous love.
Ms. Minier remembers it effectively. She’s lived within the neighborhood for 20 years and he or she’s been going to the library since she was a youngster. “It was darkish, very, very darkish and it was small,” she stated. “Generally they didn’t have the e-book that you simply have been searching for.” When she developed an curiosity in prison justice, she needed to take a look at reference books about police academy exams. “They didn’t have them,” she recalled.
By the point her son was born, the constructing wanted repairs — to a damaged air-conditioner and an outdated electrical system, to call simply two. The Brooklyn Public Library couldn’t afford the required work. So it partnered with the Fifth Avenue Committee, a nonprofit developer, to renovate the library and add 49 models of the inexpensive housing.
To qualify to reside within the constructing, Ms. Minier needed to have an earnings between 30 and 80 % of the realm median earnings, which was $86,380 when she utilized. The variety of models consists of eight flats that profit from a project-based Part 8 subsidy program and 9 flats put aside for households and people who previously skilled homelessness.
“I didn’t notice that it was going to be a constructing on prime of the library,” Ms. Minier recalled. “I assumed they have been simply going to resume the library and that’s it. However then, the constructing got here and I used to be like, ‘Oh, I obtained to use for that.’”
It wasn’t Ms. Minier’s first time attempting her luck at a housing lottery. “I’ve had greater than 38 purposes. However this one was meant to be.” She was chosen out of 60,000 candidates.
The condo she and her son moved into has two bedrooms. It’s the first time that the 6-year-old and the 34-year-old every have a room of their very own. “Think about,” she stated, “33 years residing with any individual else, not having your personal house. This place is a blessing.”
$1,350 | Sundown Park, Brooklyn
Miguelina Minier, 34
Occupation: Relationship supervisor for a nonprofit financial institution
On recognition: As a result of Ms. Minier has come to know so many individuals within the neighborhood by means of the work she does, it’s uncommon that she will exit with out being acknowledged. “Each time I stroll down the road I hear, ‘Hello, Miguelina. Hello, hello, hello, hello — just like the president,” she stated, laughing.
On leaving New York: Regardless that Ms. Minier hopes that she and Ian keep within the condo for years to return, she does typically surprise what it could be wish to reside in a home. “I need to have a yard the place I could make barbecue,” she stated. “My son tells me that he desires to have a trampoline to leap and I need to give him that.”
Ms. Minier, born within the Dominican Republic, got here to the United States as a toddler and her residing circumstances have at all times been tight. “I’m from a overseas nation,” she stated, “and while you come right here, you don’t have your personal house. Regardless that you’re 13, 14, you’re nonetheless sleeping with a cousin or any individual else. Ian, thank God, he’s fortunate. He has one thing that I by no means had earlier than. He has his personal house.”
Ian, born in Sundown Park, had grown up in crowded flats for the primary few years of his life, so getting his personal room was sufficient to make him excited in regards to the transfer — and that was earlier than he came upon in regards to the library downstairs. “That got here in a while,” Ms. Minier stated. “When the library was about to open, we had the chance to have a tour within the library for the tenants. When he noticed that, I defined to him, ‘We’re the primary ones seeing the library as a result of we reside on prime of it.’ He was like, ‘Oh, mommy. Oh my God, oh my God!’”
If it have been as much as Ian, he and his mom would go to the library day by day. “I’m the one who’s like, ‘Not right this moment, Ian, mommy’s drained — let’s go one other day,’” Ms. Minier stated. Nonetheless, they make it a minimum of thrice every week.
Ms. Minier reads to Ian each once in a while, however today it’s principally him studying to her from favorites just like the “Pete the Cat” sequence and “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!”
When her son is at school, Ms. Minier spends her personal time within the library. She works from dwelling and it’s useful to have entry to the library work areas.
“They’ve chargers,” she stated, “they’ve the Wi-Fi so that you can join, and so they even have plugs so that you can join your gadget. To me, personally, the library means so much. The employees are all very, very useful. You ask them for any useful resource, something, and they’re going to assist.”
Ms. Minier works for a nonprofit financial institution that lends to entrepreneurial ladies, many who reside within the neighborhood. “The work that I do focuses on the folks that we see typically on the prepare promoting churros or promoting chocolate or typically you see them on the street promoting mangoes and stuff like that. We give out a small mortgage to assist them get their enterprise began.”
The very best a part of the work is seeing a change in her neighbors. “After they textual content me and say, ‘Hey, Miguelina, look, now I’ve my very own churros cart,’ I get completely satisfied as a result of it’s one thing that they obtain, identical as me, that they arrive from a distinct nation and so they achieved one thing.”
It isn’t simply the Wi-Fi and books and quiet house that the library offers Ms. Minier and her son. It’s additionally satisfaction. On a latest discipline journey together with his classmates to a close-by hearth station, Ian had the possibility to level out the library. “He instructed all his mates, ‘That’s the place I reside. I reside on prime of the library.’”
Upstairs, he instructed them, is the place he has a room of his personal with a shelf for each e-book he checks out.
